energy and unscrupulousness, it was four years before he was able to carry it through[258]. It is scarcely necessary to state that a legislative body which could be forced to consent to such a statute as this retained in practice but few traces of that independence of the Crown which it theoretically possessed. The passage of the Act about Proclamations marks the culmination of a process begun long before Cromwell came into power, but only perfected at the close of his ministry, by which the subserviency of Parliament to the royal will was secured. But though the system did not reach its highest development until 1539, the earlier years of Cromwell’s administration show such an advance over that of his predecessor in this particular, that we are justified in regarding the entire period of his ministry as the golden age of Tudor despotism. From the time that the Commons permitted the King and his counsellor to force on them the petition against the clergy in 1532, it is scarcely too much to say that the sole function of Parliament was to register the decrees which emanated from the royal council chamber. Of course in order to render Parliament as ‘tractable’ as it was, it became necessary for Cromwell to regulate the choice of members for the King’s profit, and the success of his endeavours in this direction is little short of marvellous. Royal interference in elections was certainly not unknown before his time, but it had not attained the proportions which it was destined to assume under Cromwell, and it was often strongly resented by the people. It was only with ‘much difficulty,’ that Henry VII., in the year 1506, succeeded in forcing the citizens of London to abandon the right to elect their own sheriff, which had been granted them by the charter of Henry I.[259], and to accept the royal nominee to that office[260]. But thirty years later, the Crown had carried its encroachment on the popular liberties so far that it seemed to be usually regarded as a matter of course that a royal nomination should take the place of a fair election. If any protest was raised against Henry’s palpable infringement of ancient rights--and this was very rarely the case--the King and his minister affected to regard the complaint with a sort of indignant amazement. Let us examine the details of an election in Canterbury, which took place when Cromwell was at the height of his power. Writs had been issued for the choice of two members to Parliament from that city in early May, 1536. Between eight and nine in the morning of the eleventh of that month, the sheriff, John Hobbys, caused the commonalty of Canterbury to assemble in the accustomed place, where John Starky and Christopher Levyns were duly elected burgesses. After the voters had dispersed, about noon-time, John Alcok, the mayor of Canterbury, came to Sheriff Hobbys in great perplexity, with a letter from Cromwell and Audeley, which desired, on